school soon

2024-9-13

ah school. how an everpresent stressful force in my life you are. i've taken long breaks from it, but it always seems to be waiting just around the corner for me with a big, evil grin on its face.

i did okay in high school. i've never really been able to focus on homework, so i almost never actually did it! to the point where i literally got my ap calculus bc teacher to agree to have my grade be based soley on test scores, and i got an 'a'!

math has always been a subject i enjoyed. everything else though? hit or miss whether or not i could pay attention, let alone get work done.

the only subject i've ever straight up failed is english. i failed an english class in high school and had to retake it over the summer. i also failed my composition class i had to take for my gen eds in college... and then i dropped it the second attempt.

english has always been the bane of my existence, and i think that's largely due to my difficulty with homework. essays are like the homework! and the time has come once again for me to take that composition class, and hopefully not fail this time!

i'm taking classes at a community college, and have literally every requirement done for my associate's (2-year) degree in mathematics except that one composition class, so well i guess i've gotta do it!

however, it's only worth 4 credits, and i need a minimum of 6 credits in my degree program to qualify for student loans, which would really, really help right now in my life, so i'm left with a decision:

do i...

1. take composition by itself, getting enough financial aid from the pell grant to cover it, but be pretty short on money during the semester.
2. take composition and retake a speech class i got a 'c' in to bring my credit hours up to 7
3. take composition, retake that speech class, and take a creative writing course (not in my degree program), bringing me up to 10 credits total.

obviously 2 is the best decision, but a part of me feels like if i'm going all out on the english anyways, i might as well get a well-rounded english education with a creative writing class! creative writing is something i've tried my hand at in the past, and would really like to do (at least to some extent), so taking a class on it would be interesting and cool!

my workload would be a little ridiculous though in all likelihood, but maybe that's what i need? trial by fire! they are only 10-week classes anyways! i'd only have to suffer for 10 weeks!

i don't really have a lot of time to decide, so i'm hoping going into it in a blog post like this will give me the reflection time i need to come up with something.

if i can pass these classes this semester, i'll have my first degree, which is going to be very helpful in finding a way i can support myself going forward. honestly, if i hadn't had any college already, i'd probably look for a different path in life. it's just because i'm so incredibly close that i feel obligated to finish it. after this, my gen eds will be all done though, so i'll probably take it the extra mile and take more classes towards a bachelor's (4-year) degree, probably one or two at a time while working.

i'm honestly pretty excited for that, because i can just take the classes for my major and i'll never have to take another english class again!

anyways, i think the move is probably to start all three classes (composition and creative writing each start on 10-2, while the speech class starts on 10-18), and then decide by 10-11 (the deadline to withdraw and get a refund) whether or not i want to keep taking it.